So They Tell Me
by featherback
Summary: "He was not a fake. Screw my therapists. Forget the news. He was real in every sense of the word. And I miss him." A Reichenbach drabble!


**Hello there! This is my first fanfiction drabble...thing. I know there are plenty of Reichenbach Fall stories out there, most all certainly better than anything I could do, but I wanted to give it a go. So here's my humble contribution. I hope you enjoy it. C:**

**BBC's Sherlock belongs solely to Moffat, Gatiss, etc. I claim no ownership.**

They tell me not to think about it. Well, the self deluded, naive ones do, the ones who honestly believe not thinking about it will somehow cause it to all go away as if we lived in some type of grotesque fairytale. They tell me it's okay, let me know I'm safe, as if the one who invariably made him jump was still lurking around every corner instead of wasting to bones eight feet below ground. Sometimes I hope the wood of his coffin cracks so insects will be able to eat away at him even faster, as if this would symbolize some act of last disrespect I can't personally give him anymore. As if disrespect covers the sentiments he left me with.

They tell me it's not my fault. I couldn't do anything to intervene. I couldn't save him. He was a mad, suicidal fake genius, and I was just another individual drawn into the games he liked to play. I was tricked into solving false crimes he arranged to prove himself since I didn't know any better. Scheming was his second nature, deceiving his first. I was caught up like the rest, a meager pawn from the perspective of his tactical, twisted mind, a person to be used and then spit out again. He didn't have friends.

When they say these false things, I usually end up shouting obscenities and storming out. Then I come back in minutes later because the sessions were ordered to be mandatory ever since I broke down on Baker Street, and sink into the armchair and whisper to myself, _"No, only one."_

Some listen and rationalize with me. They sit patiently as I talk myself in circles or stare back at them, angry and mute, a muffled scream starting somewhere in my lungs and catching before it hits my throat. They endeavour to stay unbiased, to judge it all (as if they have the power to judge something like this) with an open mind and logical attitude. I can tell, though, the majority of them are too caught up in the papers or too infected by what they hear on the news. Those are the ones who lecture, drone on about virtues and the dishonest and damaged morals of artificial, immature people. They're never happy when I tell them to shut up.

Some give me tips, like the one where they say not to ponder it. Breathing exercises for stress, relating facts out loud because it will help with disorientation. Post traumatic stress syndrome. I've begun to despise that term and the therapists who label me it. There was enough of that in the war, and a counselor to follow, sticking his nose in after every fallen comrade, every siege, each mine that blew a soldier to bits.

I say I'm not disoriented, but I know a miniscule part of me is. When I wake in the mornings, blurry and still in the last dregs of sleep, I see him standing there. Then the dream fades and he fizzes out of reality, a being that never was. There are times when I call his name from the kitchen, ordering him not to steal my laptop, only to recall he's not there. I shouldn't revel in these fleeting hallucinations, but sometimes I do. Delusions are like a bad habit: they're so easy to get lost in, when the days are monotonous and news reruns seem to mock you with boundless slander.

Like they've forgotten who he was. Really was. Like the ones who know the truth decide to tag along with the rest lest they be left out or isolated for their beliefs, bleating sheep fearing the wolf of society's disapproval.

I've come to accept the advice that I should repeat facts to myself, though. I don't know why I do it. It puts things in perspective, I suppose. Convinces me where no blathering therapist could that he wasn't a liar.

_I'm John Hamish Watson. I live at 221B Baker Street. I'm an army doctor returned from Afghanistan._

I usually start it this way. Basics first.

_My landlady is Mrs. Hudson, who wears too much purple. I work at a small practice in downtown London. I'm unmarried. I have a dog called Gladstone. I don't sleep well. I try to predict fortune cookies because someone once told me it was possible._

Then the specifics:

_His name was Sherlock Holmes. He had black curly hair and gray eyes. He's dead. He's not coming back. Richard Brooks never existed. People think he was a fraud, but I know better. I owe him a lot. Too much for a dead man. I watched him fall. I saw the blood. The only social convention he's ever followed, in a twisted, nightmarish way, was leaving his note on my phone. Dictating it to me. The phone I hurled against the wall later, where it shattered._

These thoughts hurt. They burn. I become a puppet with tattered strings, left to dangle at odd angles. I become hollow, a body of bones and pale skin and nothing else. Yet I repeat them and many others to myself each day because they are honest, and in a world of deception, I need honesty.

_He's dead. He was brilliant, an unappreciated genius. He was weird, and irritating, and stupid in his quest to constantly prove himself to himself by undertaking dangerous, complicated problems. He might have loved Irene if she stuck around long enough, I don't know. I hated how he never bought groceries and how half of those groceries ended up contaminated from various body parts, derived from who knew where. I hated his self-denial at his obsession with black clothing. He said awkward things and left me to deal with the results, because he had no idea how he occasionally came across to others. Came across all the time. He dragged me into situations I wouldn't ever want to repeat. He's dead. He jumped. I hate him for that, too. His mind, though vast and confusing, was beautiful._

And then:

_I miss him._

These facts follow the same pattern, going back and forth, but they always end up with the same thing: I miss him.

_He was the realest person I've ever met._

_He played the violin, usually when I was trying to rest. I think he played it badly then on purpose._

_He shot things. The wall, the doorbell._

_Hearing the words "I'm bored" made me cringe._

_I miss him._

I never say these facts in therapy sessions. I keep them to myself, my own private well of untainted memories. I say what is expected of me, although I know this defies the whole point of therapy. But I'm done with therapists. They have blended in seamlessly with the others who carry corrupted, misguided assumptions. They say so many things, and on the days when I feel like talking I say so much back, but we never get anywhere.

Often I see Lestrade strolling down the pavement. We give little waves, smile at one another, and strike up chatter about mundane routines. But we both know what really connected us is gone, and without him Lestrade and I don't really know how to communicate. I never knew the inspector well. I have daily conversations with Mrs. Hudson, who is almost always up in my flat when she's not busy elsewhere, fussing about, making tea, generally being in the way. At first this irritated me, and I wanted to ridicule her. Quickly did I realize she only had good intentions, and knew before I concluded it myself that I needed company. Required it, craved it, if only in the form of a sixty something, motherly-like woman. She was worried about me. I discuss her tenants with her, listen with a small smile to her gossip, and once in a while we get into philosophical debates that always end in laughter. But the subject is never about him. She knows I'm not ready yet. Stamford I see too, but only every other weekend.

Sometimes I talk to Molly. Sweet, shy, little mouse Molly, who avoids my eyes and stumbles over her words. I get the feeling she's hiding something, but she was always funny that way.

Most of the time, I'm alone. I sit in my armchair and have to keep reminding myself why the one across from me is empty. His violin gathers dust, and I don't wipe the smiley face from the wall or replace the hole peppered wallpaper even though Mrs. Hudson complains. Those things make me smile. Those little recollections where his imprint still might lie, captured in yellow paint and circular bullet puncture wounds.

And if there's some alternate reality out there, where the afterlife relinquishes him and he's allowed to come back, I think I might hug him. Or punch him. Or put my hands to his face to make sure he's there, and he won't leave me again.

But he exists only in my head now. A figment. A ghost, lurking in obscure corners of my consciousness, telling me how I see but do not observe, conveying elation at a murder. I can believe in ghosts, for a little while anyways. I take comfort in hearing imagined, distant fragments of his voice as he barrels down the stairs, shouting at me to come after him because someone's died and we need to figure out how. I can believe in him even though he's dead.

He was not a fake. Screw my therapists. Forget the news. He was real in every sense of the word.

And I miss him.


End file.
